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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29110428">Never Give Up</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NessRealta/pseuds/NessRealta'>NessRealta</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Friendship, Gen, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, poe dameron comics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:49:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29110428</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NessRealta/pseuds/NessRealta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jess and Poe try to come to terms with the events that led to the near destruction of the Resistance.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Poe Dameron &amp; Jessika Pava</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Jess</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A little vignette set shortly after TLJ.  References to the Poe Dameron comics.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Poe is working on his new T-70 – they’d taken out the X-wings for a training session earlier and it hadn’t performed satisfactory <em>at all – </em>looking thoroughly miserable. Jess puts her tools down and walks over to her boss.</p>
<p>"I’m sorry about <em>Black One</em> , <em>" </em>she says quietly. She knows how much work he’s put into that ship, how many times he put her back together again when she came back from a mission damaged. She knows she hates to fly a ship that she isn’t sure she can trust.</p>
<p>Poe flashes her a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. "It’s never the ship, Jess."</p>
<p>...and then kind of freezes, and walks away without further comment.</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh fuck. </em>
</p>
<p>Jess figures to give him a minute and returns to her own, trusty, heavily modified X-wing. It’s weird, how L’ulos death seems almost like a lifetime ago, <em>so many deaths ago.</em> It was different, actually witnessing it, the funeral they’d held, the wake – now, coming back and learning that nearly all of the Resistance has been obliterated, that so, so many of her friends have died – <em>it doesn’t seem real. They’re just gone, l</em><em>ike they could be back at any moment or like they </em><em>maybe </em><em>didn’t even exist – . </em>She’s still trying to process that, trying to come to terms with all that has happened in those couple of days that <em>Black Squadron</em> was away from the Resistance, and so far she’s utterly failed. But there’s plenty of work to do so she concentrates on the tasks ahead. That’s what they all do, looking ahead. Not giving up, never giving up.</p>
<p>When Poe hasn’t returned after an hour or so, the tools still scattered around the nameless T-70, she decides to go have a look. Jess puts her own tools away. BB-8’s gone on a mission with Finn and Rey, so there’ll be no help locating the commander from that side but Jess has known Poe for a while now and she thinks she’s got a pretty good idea where to look.</p>
<p>Sure enough she finds him a small way away from the base, sitting down at the bottom of one of those massive trees, with his head bowed, arms resting on his knees. He doesn’t move when she sits down next to him or acknowledges her presence in any other way. They sit in silence for a time. Jess doesn’t ask if he’s all right. She suspects that he’d insist that he is even when he so obviously isn’t. No need to make him attempt to lie.</p>
<p>"I miss him, too," she simply says. No response. "You look tired, Poe." Which is the understatement of the century. He manages to cover it up well enough for anyone who doesn’t know him well, like the new recruits, but hell, he looks <em>shot.</em> Ready to drop down from exhaustion any second combined with this weird restlessness that is different from the positive energy that seemed to radiate from Poe Dameron before things started to go downhill.</p>
<p>"Yeah. I don’t sleep so well." The affirmative comes as a surprise. Jess keeps very still, doesn’t want to break the flow, now that he’s decided to talk. And then there it is.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Poe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He needs to get out of there for a minute. Just a moment and then he’ll get back, fix the ship, get things done. Keep on going, make things better, make things work. Build up a new Resistance. Spark. Flame. He can do this. Has to.</p><p>It’s just that he’s so tired. Sleep doesn’t come easy and when it does, when he’s worked himself to exhaustion, it brings the nightmares.</p><p>It’s not about Jess. Jess is great, the best, really. It’s just that he doesn’t want to talk right now, to anyone. Not to Jess, not to Finn, nor Leia or even his dad, whom he probably should have let know by now that he’s still alive ("Hey, Poe", Snap says a couple of days ago after returning from a supply run. "Does Kes know you’re not dead? Because you don’t really want to know some of the rumours that we’ve picked up"). He can’t shake the feeling he’s let all of them down. And he’s expected to be a leader, to inspire and give hope. He can do this, he knows. It’s just that he’s so tired. And that makes him irritable, ready to lash out in anger or, well, maybe to break down just a little bit – but so far he’s managed to keep that in check, act professionally, so he walks away.</p><p>L’ulo’s death still hurts. He once told BB-8 that Black Squadron was his family, back in D’Quar, that time he wasn’t sure he could trust any of them and he remembers how sick he’d felt, how lonely. He thinks how it’s one of the few good things right now that they chose to still trust him, after all that happened, after everything he’s done, or more precisely everything he’s <em>fucked up </em>in the last few days.</p><p>He finally looks at Jess. Who knows about control, or the lack thereof, and all the problems attached. Maybe it is time to put some of that trust back.</p><p>So he tells her. About the <em>Finalizer </em>and <em>Kylo Ren </em>ripping the location of the map right out of his mind<em>. </em>Until now he’s only told the General, back when he made his report coming back from Jakku. It didn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things – he hadn’t <em>wanted </em>it to matter – and anyway there wasn’t time, really, because they’ve been fighting an entire war in a couple of days.</p><p>So now he tells Jess and her reaction is pure Jess. She narrows her eyes, knits her brows in anger.</p><p>"I’ll kill him". And she means it, too. You wouldn’t want to cross paths with Jess when she’s in a rightful fury.</p><p>"What, you think you can convince him to fly astromech with you?"</p><p>That earns him a jab in the ribs with her elbow. Jess tries to look offended but then has to laugh, and he joins in. It’s good, being able to laugh, despite everything.</p><p>He knows he should get up, get going, fix the ship but for the moment he leans back against the tree and lets the tidal wave of tiredness wash over him. Way off in the distance he can hear Jess’ voice.</p><p>"We got you, Poe, you know that." And he kinda knows.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Black Squadron</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Well. That’d explain a lot. </em>Another information that is hard to process but one that also kind of clarifies a few things, explains a certain behavioural waywardness, the emotional distance that would have seemed odd but for the lack of time for anything but fighting what turned from highly dangerous – <em>exciting</em> – missions to a full blown out war just like <em>that.</em></p><p>If anything, she’d put it down to what happenend on the <em>Raddus </em>and on Crait.</p><p>From all that she’s heard – bits and pieces, because none of the few survivors seems to be willing to tell the whole story or maybe that’s the point, that there isn’t, really, the one whole story to tell – there was some weird shit going on. She genuinely believes that Poe did his best to try to fill them in but some of it just doesn’t make sense.</p><p>Jess wasn’t there so she isn’t going to judge. In a way she’s glad that she was away on their own seperate mission because – apart from the high probability she’d been blown to pieces when the missiles struck the hangar – she knows she’d have hated to be trapped on the cruiser, not being able to <em>do </em>anything, being chased, just waiting<em>, </em><em>not being in control</em>. On the other hand, though, she feels like she’s missing something, she and the rest of <em>Black Squadron. </em>Something that fundamentally changed the Resistance had happened, and they hadn’t been part of it.</p><p>And now <em>this.</em> Jess looks at Poe, who seems to have nearly fallen asleep. He’s leaning sideways and his head rests lightly against her shoulder. "We got you, Poe, you know that," she says quietly. And that’s what really matters. What matters is that <em>Black Squadron </em>is still there, that they are still together. They have saved each other’s ass like a thousand times and Jess trusts each of them with her life. They will get through this. And what’s more, they’ll keep on fighting.</p><p>She desperately wants to get back at the First Order. Destroy them, once and for all. For all the atrocities they committed, for all of her friends they killed and hurt. Jess knows she won’t stop, they won’t stop until the First Order is but galactic history. Or die trying, anyway, which at this point doesn’t seem that unlikely but they have beaten crazy odds before.</p><p>Her comm beeps and it’s Snap.</p><p>"Where are you, Jess? You’ve seen Poe?"</p><p>Snap and Karé have reviewed the data from the training run again and they think they’ve figured out how to improve the performance of the unwilling T-70.</p><p>"BB-8 should be able to deal with most of it once he’s back from his mission," Karé declares when the two of them arrive, sitting down opposite Jess.</p><p>Snap regards their commander – definitely asleep now – doubtfully "Is Poe ok?"</p><p>"No," Jess says. "But who is, right now?"</p><p>"Fair enough," Snap allowes. "For the record, I still believe <em>Black Squadron </em>works best as a unit."</p><p>Jess gets the impression that Snap thinks that the dire fate of the Resistance could’ve somehow been avoided if they would have gone up with Poe, as they’d wanted to. Jess has her doubts about that, but considering the futility of their own mission, it is hard to imagine that things could actually have turned out worse. She only realizes that she’s said it out loud when Karé rises an eyebrow.</p><p>"Better don’t let Suralinda hear about this one. She still thinks you brought the bad-luck spirits down on us."</p><p>"Good that Suralinda’s propaganda-ing away in the Mid Rim, then," Jess quibs. She doesn’t believe in bad-luck spirits – doesn’t care much for propaganda either, for that matter. Suralinda’s ok though; pretty badass, if truth be told.</p><p>They go on like this for a while, sitting in the shade of the tree, exchanging some friendly banter. Jess can feel herself relax. It’s kind of beginning to feel like home, like family, like<em> before</em> again.</p><p>This time it’s Snap’s comm that’s beeping. After a quick glance Snap unceremoniously prods Poe’s leg with his foot. "Hey, Poe! General Organa wants you, like <em>now</em>." Then, checking the message again:</p><p>"Looks like there might be a mission."</p><p>Jess can see Karé’s eyes light up. She smiles at Jess. "About time." And Jess can feel the energy, too. Finally there might be something to <em>do.</em> Sure, training and supplies are important, but well, a mission is a mission.</p><p>Poe is slower than usual to get into awake mode but visually perks up the second he hears the magic word. Taking in the unexpected materialization of Snap and Karé he gives them a smile – still a little tired, a little on edge, but genuine this time – and pushes to his feet. "Come on, let’s get going."</p><p>"Yeah," Jess says, grinning widely. "Time to do something incredibly brave, incredibly important and incredibly stupid."</p>
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